The present invention generally relates to detection of anatomic features in 3D data representing an ear, and more particularly to detecting the second bend plane of the ear canal surface.
A current trend in hearing aid manufacturing is towards increased digitization and automation. Previously, hearing aids were designed in a laborious manual process that required a physical manipulation of shapes to produce a hearing aid customized to the geometry of a patient's ear canal. This hearing aid manufacturing process has been digitized, and many hearing aids are designed using computer aided design (CAD) software. Such software typically consists of a suite of surface processing tools, such as tools for cutting, rounding, tapering, and sculpting a digital representation of the ear surface.
In order to decrease the time required to manufacture a hearing aid, automation is required. One way to achieve automation of the hearing aid manufacturing is to automate the input to the processing tools of the CAD software. For example, instead of requiring a human software operator to place a plane for cutting on the ear surface, the plane can be placed automatically. The operator can then decide if the plane position is desirable, and adjust the plane position if necessary. Such automation has the potential to greatly improve efficiency of hearing aid manufacturing.
In order to automatically provide input to the surface processing tools, feature detection is required. Each ear canal surface has a different shape unique to an individual patient. Various anatomical features of ear canal surfaces exist that can be used to define the shape of an ear canal surface. Such features, when accurately detected, can be used as inputs for automatic hearing aid manufacturing. Accordingly, methods for automatically detecting such anatomic features of ear canal surfaces are desirable.